Bulldogs Center Battles Injury

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WSIL Sports

HARRISBURG -- Three days before Harrisburg's conference championship game against Benton, Bulldogs center Jordan Quertermous felt pain in his hand while running a play in practice.

The senior feared the worst.

"We got X-rays here in Harrisburg and seen it was broken and I didn't think I was going to be able to play again," Quertermous said.

Jordan fractured the knuckle on his right ring finger. He had surgery Friday morning, less than 12 hours before the game. Doctors inserted two pins in the bone to help it heal.

"I woke up and there was a cast on it already and he told me I could play that night," he said.

After getting the good news, Jordan went straight to the field to see if it was possible to snap the ball with his left hand.

"Me and Ryne (Roper) found a football and started practicing left-handed snaps," said Quertermous. "Before that I'd never tried it."

"He had no trouble with it," Bulldogs head coach Jason Roper said. "You really couldn't tell any difference at all."

Snapping under center was only half of Jordan's battle. After he got that down, he still had to teach himself to snap out of the shotgun, a formation the Bulldogs use about 10 times a game.

"I've never really been good before this year at right-handed shotgun snaps, so I was nervous about that."

But Jordan hasn't had any trouble snapping out of either formation. Since the surgery, he hasn't muffed a single snap.

"The velocity that he snaps with his right hand, as far as getting it up to the quarterback and the quickness that he uses there," Roper added. "For anybody else, they would probably struggle left-handed."

Jordan is scheduled to have the pins removed next week but says he might stick with what's worked the last three games.

"I feel like in another two or three weeks, if we're still playing, I'll keep snapping left-handed."